My Makeup Audit: October 2020
During 2013 I was infatuated with the indie brand Meow Cosmetics. They did and still do loose mineral eyeshadows in beautiful and fun collections. No new collections have been created for quite some time as far as I can see, but most of the older (and stunning) collections are still available.
For a while I was collecting their shadows and I have oh so many. Meow used to open up their Halloween shop in the Autumn and made some special collections available for a limited time only. The same collections would appear every year and sometimes new shades were added. The same approach was applied for Christmas, Summer and Friday the 13th. I bought the Halloween shades for a few years before I had snagged what I wanted. Very satisfying.
To honor my vast Meow stash I have decided, starting in October, to base my monthly eye arsenal heavily on season appropriate Meow collections. I will keep this approach for a few months at least, until I get bored I presume. For October I’ve picked all the shadows I own, and have yet to audit, from the Zombie Apocalypse, Dance of Death, Scary Ghost Stories and Halloween Zombies collections. A total of 21 shades.
The October arsenal
To accompany these loose shimmer/metallic shadows I picked some mattes in the form of mixed singles and a fixed palette by Sleek Makeup, ending up with a total tally of 45 shades. Other brands included are Nabla, MAC, Makeup Geek, Illamasqua and Inglot. To accompany the eye team we have five cheek products – four blushes and one highlighter. But more on cheeks later, lets start with the eyes.
Part One – Eyes
Top Row L-R: Uninterrupted, Confection, Tuscan Sun, Blackberry, Brun
Middle Row L-R: Feint, Black Tied, Early Bird, Morocco, Wild Side
Bottom Row L-R: 304, 370
This palette includes mainly matte shades of varying age from MAC (Uninterrupted, Blackberry, Brun, Black Tied), Makeup Geek (Confection, Tuscan Sun, Early Bird, Morocco), Nabla (Wild Side), Illamasqua (Feint) and Inglot (304, 370).
Force of Nature palette
This Sleek palette was released 2015-2016 and is an all matte palette. Just looking at it I am drawn to the colour scheme but I have used it very infrequently over the years.
Top Row L-R: Brains Over Beauty, Living Dead, Post Mortem
Bottom Row L-R: Tetrodotoxin, Datura, Sepulchre, Infection
For loose shadows we can start off with seven shades from the Zombie Apocalypse collection by Meow Cosmetics. Muted shimmer shades with lovely names like Infection and Post Mortem.
Top Row L-R: Present, Past
Bottom Row L-R: Eerie, Necromancer, Cadaver, Spellbinding
Next up we have four shades from the Dance of Death collection by Meow Cosmetics and two from the Scary Ghost Stories collection (Past, Present). Past, Present and Eerie are the ones I’ve used the most previously.
Top Row L-R: Full Moon, Skelecat, Witch’s Brew, Spider Web
Bottom Row L-R: Jack O Lantern, Ghoul, Omen, Banshee
Finally we have eight shades from the Halloween Zombies collection by Meow Cosmetics. A bit more bright and colourful shades compared to the other collections.
Let’s move on to swatches of each shade and a rundown of how they fared in the audit starting with the matte singles palette.
These mattes were workhorse shades in varying degrees over the course of the month. Black Tied (MAC) and Wild Side (Nabla) were used the most followed by Uninterrupted (MAC) and Confection (MUG). All four performed well and will be kept. Blackberry and Brun (both by MAC) also work well and are useful albeit maybe not very exciting. Tuscan Sun, Morocco and Early Bird (all by MUG) were fun matte additions due to their more colourful nature. Another beautiful and rather unique shade for me is Feint, a depotted shade from a face palette by Illamasqua that I had to get rid of due to cream products that had gone off. 304 by Inglot was only used once but worked nicely and will be kept for now. The one shade that did not strike my fancy was surprisingly enough the bright yellow shade 370 (Inglot). This specific shade of yellow did not look good on me. I would describe is as a garish light banana shade. I love using yellow and enjoy most yellow shades that I come across but this was simply not for me. So it will leave my collection.
Force of Nature palette – Sleek Makeup
The Force of Nature palette (Sleek Makeup) was a bit of a surprise for me. I really thought I would enjoy using the purple shades but they just did not entice me when wearing them. The more neutral shades were ok but they are not worth keeping on their own. So this palette will be let go in its entirety.
Zombie Apocalypse collection – Meow Cosmetics
One thing to note is that these shadows are generally hard to get nice swatches of. If swatched without a wet base of some kind they look lackluster and if used with a primer they tend to come out patchy. But used on the eyes with a primer they usually work well and fulfill their potential. Out of the seven shades from the Zombie Apocalypse collection by Meow Cosmetics I have decided to keep Brains Over Beauty, Tetrodotoxin, Post Mortem, Sepulchre and Infection. Not all of them might not survive a round 2 of this audit, but they tickle my fancy enough to be kept for now. Living Dead is a pretty gunmetal shade but not special enough to warrant med to keep it as a single shadow. Silver shades is something I wear quite infrequently and I see no point in having too many options on hand. Datura was used on the lid and as an inner corner highlight. It is very pale green but it is so light in its effect that I see no point in keeping it.
Scary Ghost Stories and Dance of Death collections – Meow Cosmetics
Present and Past from the Scary Ghost Stories collection are very pretty in different ways. Present is a delicate shade with a soft shift that I like to wear as a topper or an inner corner shade. Past is a potent lid shade. Moving on to the Dance of Death collection, Eerie is a stunning purple with a blue sparkle throughout. Very unique. Cadaver is a beautiful green gold and Spellbinding is an intense white with a slight pink shift and pink sparkle. I used this one as a cheek highlighter as well. Those three are keepers. The only let down of the bunch was Necromancer. It has a black base that unfortunately made it difficult to blend and not fun to work with.
Halloween Zombies collection – Meow Cosmetics
Last of the eye products are from the Halloween Zombies collection by Meow Cosmetics. Full Moon is a very intense white gold and very pretty. Skelecat however is a bit too slight in its effect. In the jar it has a lovely green tinge but on the eye that was sadly not visible. I used it primarily as an inner corner highlight and it was just not potent enough for me for that purpose. Witch’s Brew, Spider Web and Jack O Lantern are all fun pops of brighter colour and Ghoul is a dirty neutral that was anything but boring to wear. Omen and Banshee are maybe less wearable for me, but unique and beautiful enough to keep. So out of this lot the only one I’m not keeping is Skelecat.
Part Two – Cheeks
Top Row L-R: Autoerotique, Melba, Fever
Bottom Row L-R: Here Comes Joy, Regal Mauve
When it comes to cheek products I have managed to near the end of my collection. I only own three more blushes and two of those are quite deeply pigmented so I saved one shade for November. To have a little more variety I chose to add two more shades, shades that have already been through round 1 of the audit in previous months (Autoerotique and Melba by MAC). I know I own some loose highlighters that I could have included this month but forgot about them, so instead I did a repeat of a pressed one from MAC (Here Comes Joy). In total four blushes and one highlight were picked for this arsenal but Regal Mauve by Nabla and Fever by MAC are the only ones being audited.
Top Row L-R: Autoerotique, Melba, Fever
Bottom row L-R: Here Comes Joy, Regal Mauve
Fever (MAC) is one of those deeply pigmented and bright shades that I rarely reach for on a daily basis, and that is a shame. It’s a bit tricky to use but I find that if I only pat off the blush in the palm of my hand before applying I can control the intensity a lot more easily. Fever is a very pretty shade and it deserves to be kept for round 2. Regal Mauve (Nabla) is another cool toned shade and I enjoy it a lot. It’s very versatile and easy to use. So both cheek shades are being kept for the time being.
Moving on to some of the looks I wore during the month…
October 2
Eyes: Spider Web, Skelecat, Uninterrupted on top of Primer Potion in Caffeine (Urban Decay)
Cheeks: Fever
Lips: Noir Moderne (Chanel)
October 5
Eyes: Dawn, Moonbeam, Twilight, Lightning, Sandstorm, Skelecat, Brains over Beauty
Cheeks: Regal Mauve
Lips: A mix of Noir Moderne (Chanel) and Dolce Vita (Nars)
October 12
Eyes: Tetrodotoxin, Skelecat, Wild Side
Cheeks: Fever, Here Comes Joy
Lips: A mix of Mull it Over (MAC) and Devoted to Chili (MAC)
October 13
Eyes: Banshee, Ghoul, Datura over Cream Fusion Eye Colour in The New Noir (H&M)
Cheeks: I have no notes on this
Lips: nothing
October 14
Eyes: Wild Side
Cheeks: Fever, Spellbinding
Lips: Burning Love (MAC)
October 15
Eyes: Spider Web, Tuscan Sun, Full Moon
Cheeks: Autoerotique
Lips: Velvet Ribbon (Lisa Eldridge)
October 17
Eyes: Cadaver, Uninterrupted, Black Tied
Cheeks: Autoerotique, Here Comes Joy
Lips: Burning Love (MAC) and Nougatine (H&M)
October 20
Eyes: Omen, Necromancer, Morocco, Spellbinding
Cheeks: Regal Mauve, Spellbindning
Lips: Rouge Audace (Chanel)
October 21
Eyes: Witch’s Brew, Datura, Early Bird, Black Tied
Cheeks: Regal Mauve
Lips: Love of My Life (Lisa Eldridge)
To conclude this month a total of seven items were let go consisting of 16 unique eye shadow shades. This month was not a very creative makeup month for me and I was quite uninspired most days. I think it was due to having a very hectic month at work. I went without makeup a lot and when I did do my makeup I often had little time to play. But doing this project is still a lot of fun and I always look forward to the next monthly arsenal.
Thanks for reading!